Before she had even given the lad a chance to answer, she was out of her seat and gone from the room.
The tears began to slip free, and Selina was desperate to get to her bedchamber before anyone saw but not two steps from the door, her way was blocked by Mrs. Leary.
Preparing herself for the coming hostility, Selina took a steadying breath before meeting the housekeeper’s eyes.
To her surprise however, it wasn’t hostility or hatred she saw in the other woman’s expression but understanding and even regret.
“I have been – harsh,” Mrs. Leary said suddenly, and Selina nearly staggered from the shock.
“Your father,” she continued, shocking Selina even more. “I became acquainted with him when he stayed here at the manor house.”
That made sense, since Mrs. Leary had been the housekeeper since Selina could remember. She’d never really thought about the fact that the lady must have known her father.
“He and I – that is, at one point I thought perhaps we –“ She stuttered to an awkward halt, but she didn’t need to continue for Selina to understand. The housekeeper had had a tendre for her father. And she didn’t quite know what to say or how to feel about that.
Mrs. Leary shook her head, a derisive smile on her face.
“I was younger,” she said. “Infinitely stupider than I am now. But I truly believed there was an affection there, and then one day –“ She shrugged her shoulders. “He came back here filled with talk of the gypsy woman. I knew then that those affections had either never existed or had been transferred to your mother. And I hated her for it.”
The blunt honesty was shocking, but Selina appreciated it. And the news that her father had played fast and loose with the heart of a woman besides her mother only confirmed that he was a blackguard of the worst sort.
“And then I hated you for being her daughter. And his, truth be told. But you are good for that boy, and even for his lordship. What you’ve done, what I’ve seen – I never would have thought it possible.”
Selina opened her mouth to respond but the truth was, she couldn’t think of a single word to say in the face of such a turnaround.
“I misjudged you, Miss Lee. And for that, I apologise. I think his lordship is making a mistake letting you go.”
With that, she nodded briefly then bustled past Selina and into the kitchens.
Selina shook her head slightly. She used to think that nothing would take her by surprise, yet two weeks in this house had changed her in ways she never could have imagined. And apparently, it had bridged the gap between the gypsy girl and the locals. After all, if the formidable Mrs. Leary could admit to misunderstanding Selina then anyone could, she was sure.
If anything good could come from this situation aside from Timothy being settled, Selina supposed it would be that.
But it was hard to focus on any positives right now. Tonight was to be her last night at the manor house.
Philip and Timothy would leave tomorrow, and Selina would never see them again.
Once more overwhelmed with a helpless sorrow, she dashed up the stairs toward the door to freedom. She didn’t want to go to the bedchamber that only reminded her of her night with Philip.
She needed fresh air, freedom. She needed to try to remember how content she’d felt before she’d ever known that Philip existed.
Philip paced up and down the study, but the movement didn’t help his circuitous thoughts, just as sitting still hadn’t.
He couldn’t get Selina’s words to him out of his mind. He couldn’t forget the look in her eyes – the hurt and disappointment.
And he couldn’t ignore the fact that she was right. He’d clung to his grief, his guilt, his anger for so long now that he didn’t even know how to let go of it all.
But he had to, didn’t he? He had to if he wanted Timothy to have a happy childhood.
And he had to if he wanted to be happy himself.
Remembering Charlotte didn’t have to mean remembering the tragedy that had led to her death.
He could remember her sweet disposition, her excitement about becoming a mother, and her love for Timothy. For him, too, he supposed though the later years of their marriage had been mired in suffering.
Shouldn’t he find it within himself to honour her memory by letting go of all the pain he’d been clinging to? Hadn’t he been doing her a disservice by only remembering the negatives?
As soon as that thought entered his head, a sense of rightness stole over Philip, and a sudden clarity burst in his mind.
Finally, the walls that he’d built around his heart tumbled to dust. Leaving the past in the past was the only way for him to create a future worth having. The future that he’d walked away from this morning. The future he needed more than air.
He’d run from it a few days ago. Now, he needed to run to it, grab on to it. And never let go.
Heading down the gravel path to the beach, Selina tried to remember all the things she’d loved about her life before.
But her heart wouldn’t be silenced. And she had to admit, to herself at least, that she’d never been happier than the two weeks she’d spent with Timothy and Philip. Without even realising it, she’d begun to think of them all as a family, Agnes, too. If she were brutally honest, she imagined them all here forever, even though she knew it wasn’t possible.
It was her fault that her heart was breaking now. Hers and nobody else’s.
She reached the beach and headed straight for the rocks where she’d first met Timmy and Philip. It seemed a lifetime ago. She was a different person to the one who’d helped the hurt little boy.
Loving a complicated man had changed her. And she’d never be the same.
Selina clambered up the rocks and sat on the flat surface of the biggest, staring out at the crashing waves of the Atlantic.
She watched a seagull rise high before swooping down toward the water then take off again in an elegant glide. She envied it the ability to fly away and escape whenever it wanted to.
She wondered how long it would be before she’d be able to come here and not think of Philip, not miss his arms around her, not wish with all her heart that he was still there.
The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up, and Selina knew he was coming.
He didn’t make a sound, yet she felt it the moment he arrived. And she felt something else, too. A presence. But this wasn’t tortured. There was a sense of relief, a sense of freedom swirling around her mind.
She turned to look at him as he marched across the sand toward where she sat.
He looked severely handsome as ever, the strong winds playing havoc with his chestnut hair.
And yet, Selina sensed a shift in him, in Charlotte.
Something had changed. Something was different.
She rose to her feet as he reached the rocks and began to climb down toward him.
When he reached up a hand to assist her, she hesitated only a moment before grasping it.
And when her feet hit the compact sand beneath her boots, she couldn’t quite bring herself to pull away.
But neither, she noted with a thudding heart, did he.
The silence stretched on as she waited for him to speak but after eons of him just standing there gazing at her, her nerves couldn’t take it anymore.
“Philip, what –“
Before she could finish her question however, he reached out and pulled her against him then captured her lips in a kiss so tender that it splintered her soul.
Chapter Sixteen
P
hilip broke the kiss far sooner than he would have liked.
But there’d be plenty of time for that. A lifetime, if he got his way.
He watched as her eyes blinked slowly open, a smug masculine pride filling him at the dazed look they contained.
“Wh—“
Before she could ask one of the hundreds of questions she no doubt had, Philip took her by t
he hand and led her wordlessly to the tall grasses behind the rocks.
There he sat, pulling her gently to sit beside him, both of them facing the vast ocean.
He kept her small hand gripped within his own as he turned his head to look at her.
“I’m sorry,” he began. The words were too simple to convey all his regret about so much of how he’d acted, especially over the last few days.
“I shouldn’t have walked out that morning when you told me about –“ He stumbled slightly but ploughed on, knowing how important this conversation was. For both of them. “About Charlotte,” he finished. “And I shouldn’t have hidden myself away these past few days since then, either.”
Selina shook her head, the breeze catching a lock of hair and plastering it to her face. Philip reached out and grasped the tendril, tucking it behind her ear and smoothing his thumb along her cheek.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I know how difficult these things are. You lost your wife, Philip, Timothy’s mother. It would be hard for anyone to let that go.”
He looked into her eyes, trying to find the right words to say to her. Trying to vocalise his thoughts.
He’d spent days searching his soul, figuring out how to move forward. And he’d decided that the only way for that to happen would be complete honesty. Even if it made him sound like a callous bastard. If nothing else, Selina deserved that from him.
“I’ve mulled over what you said for days now. Agonised would perhaps be a better description.” He smiled ruefully. “At first, I didn’t want to believe that what you’d said was true. That after everything she’d suffered during our marriage, I was still somehow causing Charlotte pain. That the terrors and sleepless nights my boy was suffering were my doing.”
Selina gasped and turned to face him fully, scrambling to her knees.
“No, Philip. I didn’t mean – I would never mean that you were to blame.”
She looked so distressed that he couldn’t help but lean forward and press a soft, reassuring kiss to her lips. He pulled away before the fire that was always waiting to flare between them could ignite past his control.
“I know that’s not what you meant, love.” The endearment slipped out, yet he didn’t regret it.
He’d decided on complete honestly, after all.
“But the truth is, I’ve been living in an agony of guilt for so long, even before Charlotte died, that it wasn’t really a shock to me. I think that perhaps I just needed to hear it from someone else, someone who mattered, to make me really take stock of it.”
He saw her entire body tense at his words and for a moment, he feared that he was too late. That what he said to her now wouldn’t stop her from leaving his life for good.
But he couldn’t let that happen. At least not without trying to keep her by his side where she belonged.
“We are worlds apart, Selina. I’m painfully aware of that. And I know that my past is quite literally haunting us both. But the truth is that I was using those things as excuses. Excuses to put distance between us. To keep myself from feeling for you the way I do.”
He looked down at their clasped hands, knowing that once the words were said they couldn’t be unsaid. Knowing that she may still consider the differences between them to be insurmountable.
Steeling himself, he looked up, capturing her dark gaze in his own.
“I haven’t let go of Charlotte—you were right about that,” he whispered. “But it was because I felt as though I’d failed her. I felt as though my inability to make her happy is what killed her.”
Selina’s grip tightened in his own.
“But I’m ready now. I’m ready to let go of the guilt and the grief. I’m ready to admit that I couldn’t save her, not from herself. I’m desperately sad that she couldn’t see a way to hold on to life. I’m desperately sad that Timothy will never know what a kind and gentle soul she was. But the time has come to let her go. For her sake. For Timmy’s. And for mine.”
A sudden icy wind whipped up around them, colder even than the blustery breeze from the sea, and Philip suddenly got the feeling they weren’t alone here on the beach.
He looked to Selina, and she nodded once.
Charlotte was here.
Philip took a deep breath and continued.
“I’ve been so afraid, Selina. Afraid to admit what I feel for you. Afraid to risk my heart and Timmy’s, when he’s lost so much. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not afraid to let my guilt and grief go. I’m not afraid to let Charlotte go. I’m not afraid to tell you that I love you fiercely and with every fibre of my being.”
He watched as tears spilled from her eyes and poured silently down her cheeks.
“I thought I’d have to go back. Back to a place filled with nothing but misery and sorrow. But I don’t. Timmy wants to be here. With you. And I do, too.”
“Philip –“ Her voice was hoarse with emotion, and he swore an oath to himself that he’d never make her cry again if he could help it. “You can’t – we can’t. I’m a nobody. I’m a gypsy orphan.”
Philip let go of her hand so he could reach up and clasp her face in his hands, staring into her eyes, willing her to believe him.
“You are kind and beautiful, courageous and unique,” he said fiercely. “And I adore you. You are everything I want, Selina. Everything I need. Let us be a family. Let us live our days here, in our own corner of the world. Let us not be weighed down by ghosts of the past or the opinions of people who don’t matter. As long as we love each other, nothing else matters. And I do love you. More than I ever thought I was capable of.”
After an age, Selina smiled, and Philip felt as though a weight was lifted from his shoulders.
“I love you, too,” she said. “And I love Timothy. I do want you both to stay with me. Forever.”
Philip could have wept as relief and joy burst inside him, battling for dominance.
He leaned down to kiss her but before their lips met, that icy chill swept through him once more.
Only this time, he didn’t feel scared, or hopeless, or anything negative. Instead, a sense of absolute peace settled around him, and he could have sworn he was wrapped in a swift, warm embrace before the most exquisite sense of relief and freedom surrounded him.
“Papa!”
He turned to watch as Timmy ran across the sand toward them both, his face split in a wide grin, Mrs. Healy trailing behind him, a matching joyful expression wreathing her face.
Turning back to face Selina, he saw that her own smile was blinding, even through the tears.
“She’s gone,” he said softly, in awe. “She’s moved on.” It wasn’t a question but Selina nodded nonetheless.
Epilogue
T
he wind whipped through Selina’s hair, and she smiled indulgently as Philip chased his son into the surf before swinging him high into the air, earning himself a laughing squeal.
“You’ll never get him to sleep with all this excitement, you know,” Agnes huffed beside her but when Selina looked over, she saw the twinkle of merriment in those eyes.
“Hmm. Well, Mrs. Leary will have his bath ready and the lavender always settles him. I only hope it works on this one, too.” She reached down and rubbed a hand over her swollen belly.
“What time does Timothy arrive?”
“Philip will take the carriage to meet him this afternoon. He’ll be here by the dinner hour tomorrow.”
“Ach, tis a shame the lad spends so much time away,” Agnes groused.
“I miss him, too,” Selina admitted. “But tis the way of the peerage. And Philip wants him to learn his duties. A summer with his grandmother in London will have been good for him. We can’t keep him here with us forever. Tis bad enough that Philip leaves the running of things to stewards most of the time.”
“Well, I’m just glad he’s coming home in time for the little one’s arrival. Have you told him yet?” Agnes nodded toward the beach where Philip was ca
rrying five-year-old William on his shoulders as he walked toward them.
“After the fuss he made when William was born?” Selina scoffed. “Nay, it will start after he’s gone this afternoon, but it won’t be rushed. He’ll be back just in time for his child to make an entrance.”
“Right.”
Agnes climbed to her feet, still sprightly even ten years later.
“Master William, let’s you and I walk up to the house. I think if you ask very nicely, Cook will let you steal a pie before your bath.”
Philip lifted William from his shoulders and let the lad run toward Agnes’s outstretched hand.
He strode toward his wife and placed a tender kiss on her lips.
“How are you feeling, love?” he asked, his face stamped with concern.
“I’m well,” Selina assured him for the thousandth time.
“And how does our babe fare?” he asked, running a light hand over her belly.
“Healthy and content.” Selina smiled.
Inside, their babe kicked at the sound of Philip’s voice.
Almost as though she understood every word.
And perhaps she did.
This would be a daughter. Not the seventh, but special nonetheless. Just like her mother.
The End.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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